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Minor League Wrap (6/25-7/1/12)

BA had Seon Gi Kim on the Prospect Hot Sheet and mention of Poythress, but nothing, NOTHING on Anthony Fernandez opening his double-A tenure with consecutive complete games? BLARG.

At least there were Mariners representatives for Hitter of the Week in the NWL and the MWL. I named the same guys. You’ll figure it out when we get there, I’m not giving out any spoilers. Also Zunino signed for $4 million against a slot of $5.2 million. That means we’re only slightly over budget. Hooray!

Symmetry can be eye-catching. For example, I notice that with 79 at-bats in May and 83 at-bats in June, he had a 29/8 K/BB in both cases. There’s some divergence there, like how he hit two fewer dingers in June and had two more hits overall, but it’s kind of weird, is it not? You don’t expect Peguero to have consistency, but he hit .253/.337/.557 in May and wasn’t too far off at a .265/.330/.494 line in June. I like changes. It suggests to me that things are happening or being worked on. This, on the other hand, suggests to me that Carlos Peguero is just doing that thing he does, which is great for fans of that thing, and less good for those of you who might prefer other things.

I just looked up the numbers and Carraway has now made ten starts in Tacoma. He only made seven in Jackson and had 21% Ks there while he’s been at 14.6% in Tacoma. Huh. Carraway threw 107 pitches in this game, 72 of them for strikes. After the second inning dinger (PCL!), he retired fourteen in a row and the single that broke the streak in the seventh inning didn’t go much of anywhere; there was a sac bunt, then two Ks, and no one else reached. I’m getting to the point where I would feel okay if the M’s decided to use him in the rotation, though I think that the most likely scenario is that they wait for him to get more consistent strikeouts and use Beavan in the meantime. I was going to comment on the walks, but it looks like he hasn’t handed out a free pass since June 14th and has logged 22.1 innings since then, so scratch that idea.

From The Training Room:
When Guti went to the concussion list (arg), RHP Steve Delabar was called up from Tacoma. Also C Brandon Bantz was sent to the Cal League. Did the Rainiers need three catchers anyway? Yes, they did, because C Adam Moore got DFA’d and is inactive for the time being. Also RHP Josh Kinney got called up. He put up good numbers. You can look them up. LHP Steve Garrison came in from Jackson to replace him.

Strange Happenings:
Danny Hultzen started the 11-4 loss. Don’t worry, he wasn’t good, but he wasn’t that bad. He pitched four frames and allowed a run to score on three hits and had a 6/4 K/BB. Mostly, it was Hensley, who had six runs score on him without an out after five hits and two walks, and Delabar only scored one of those… Franklin made a couple of errors in the game on Sunday. The things one notices.

So now, Romero seems to be doing the whole “hey, I’m going to be promoted to a more pitcher-friendly and difficult environment and then go tear it up.” ‘Kay. I suppose the place to start out this week is that Romero walked three times, once more than he struck out. Between his games in the Cal League and those in double-A, that means he walked seven times for the month. He walked nine times in April and May combined. Progress? Yeah. Let’s say that’s progress. Also there was a dinger. And nearly half his hits went for extras. Should I complain about his third caught stealing of the year and that he’s only swiped six bags? I don’t know that I mind.

Fernandez opened his double-A tenure by throwing consecutive complete games. I feel like someone, at some point during my tenure watching this system, has done the same, but as I was trying to turn up names they were all wrong. Fernandez threw 72.1% strikes this time out. He didn’t need even a hundred pitches to get through his CG. No one got further than second against him. He retired ten in a row before handing out the only free pass and then had thirteen in a row after that. So, I guess we have our Hultzen replacement for results, but don’t get funny ideas. His velocity has improved to the point where I’d say he’s a viable prospect, but he’s still largely getting by on hard work and outsmarting whoever he’s facing. I talk about it like it’s a bad thing, but it’s good! Fernandez is possibly a major league-caliber pitcher!

Extra Pitching Notes:
Gosh. Taijuan Walker had a 8/7 K/BB and ten hits allowed through eight innings this week. This has been a thing for a while ago. I don’t like this thing. I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it… Meanwhile, Maurer continues his own recent rough stretch. He only lasted five innings this time and seemed to labor, with a 3/4 K/BB and five hits allowed, turning into four runs.

From the Training Room:
RHP Jandy Sena was activated from the DL, which meant that RHP Andrew Kittredge was gone to Clinton again. BUT FOR HOW LONG?… Later in the week, there was a slew of moves. Garrison left, and because the roster needed a spot and his production had tapered off quite a bit from the early part of the season, UT Eric Campbell was released, 1B Jharmidy de Jesus went back to Clinton (no surprise there), RF Johermyn Chavez and 1B Rich Poythress were activated from the DL, and LHP Jose Jimenez somehow escaped High Desert.

Strange Happenings:
Tenbrink is still hitting pretty well and was 6-for-15 this week in three games and change. The only issue was that he struck out six times and wasn’t playing a whole lot. One would want him to play. He’s good when he plays…. If I’m looking at the offense for the week beyond some guys being more or less successful, a couple things rise to the surface. One is Ks. Wednesday, the Blue Wahoos struck out sixteen. Thursday, they struck out thirteen, which is still better though unpleasant. The other thing is ejections. Sams got ejected on Sunday. Dunigan got tossed on Thursday. I suppose frustration had set in.

High Desert Mavericks (4-3 this week, 7-4 in the second half, 44-37 overall, 1 GB in CAL South)

High Desert seems to exist for the sake of baseball-related comedy. This week happened to be Wiswall’s time to shine and he, like many others, took full advantage of the homestand. Wiswall is batting .307/.371/.547 at home. That’s pretty good. On the road, he’s .219/.259/.387. That’s not in the least bit good. If I’m going to be positive about it because I have to be, Wiswall hit .277/.354/.578 in June, which is a two-hundred point OPS improvement over the previous couple of months he’d turned in. There were four more home games than road games this month though, and the sample is limited by the days off for the ASB. Make something of it at your own discretion.

With the week the offense was having, you can imagine what the pitching was like in most places. One way of getting around the risk of balls leaving the yard is to strike out everyone, which is more or less what Smith did this week. I had to double-take when I was looking it up, but through his last ten appearances, he’s run a 18/2 K/BB over 12.1 innings, and he seems to be getting better as the season goes on. The only issue is that, in those same ten games, he’s had a .333 average against. I’m willing to credit part of that to the league, but it’s hard to know how much. I’d at least consider granting him a promotion to see what happens.

From the Training Room:
Early in the week, the Mavs released RHP Austin Hudson. I’m not a big fan of this move because he’d been an interesting relief prospect at various points. It’s not really his fault that he got sucked into the Adelanto Charybdis along with so many others. Next in line was RHP Tim Griffin from Clinton. Good luck, kid?… On Friday, the Mavs brought in Bantz and released C Andrew Giobbi. If you knew the difference between the two, you’re further along than most people… Bantz had to go again, so the team brought in C Carlton Tanabe from Everett where he had been playing erratically anyway. When Jimenez left, the team brought in RHP Wes Alsup from the AZL. Gosh, I hope he throws strikes this time. He’s so much more interesting when he throws strikes.

Strange Happenings:
James Jones walked three times in Sunday’s game and six times this week. Huzzah!.. John Hicks had five passed balls this week. Whatever the opposite of “Huzzah!” is… A reliever for the Sixers threw four wild pitches and walked four in an inning and a third. Three of his four outs were Ks. Also, the starter that day was ejected after three and two-thirds innings. He had three walks, three Ks and three home runs allowed. Baseball… Mixed results: Gillheeney rung up ten in five and two-thirds on Wednesday. He also let five runs (four earned) score on seven hits, three walks, and two hit batters… Line of the week: Tyler Burgoon: 0.2 IP, 3/0 K/BB. Thank Hicks’ defense for that… The opposing offense scored five runs in four consecutive games. Uh…

Oh, Choi… I don’t know how long anyone’s been reading this, so here’s a refresher. Choi was Korea’s top prep prospect at one point, a third baseman with advanced hitting skills, and it was a big deal when the M’s signed him as many people wanted him to stay in his home country. The Mariners decided to move him behind the plate and he hit .378/.459/.541 that year for Peoria and then .302/.380/.442 for High Desert. One doesn’t usually expect such hitters to tread water at that level. Then he missed all of last season, by which I mean he did not play one game. Strained back muscle. Couldn’t do anything. With that in mind, the Mariners gave up on the catching experiment for him, or so it seems, and haven’t retried the hot corner thing, making him a first baseman/DH for the time being. And then he does this, which is ridiculous for any hitter that’s not in High Desert or I guess the PCL. It makes me sad, because I don’t know if he can do it with enough consistency to make him a viable first base prospect.

An exhibit of ERA being kind of dumb, a lot of the time. Two of the runs Miller allowed this week came in the ninth inning of his start, and that started when a single and a double opened the inning. An out later, a reliever entered the game and scored one of the remaining runs. Otherwise, Miller’s average against for this outing was .194. After some singles opened the third, Miller went on to retired eighteen of nineteen going into the ninth inning and that one runner reached the painful way. All things considered, this was probably his most dominant start yet.

From the Training Room:
Griffin was out, Kittredge was in. Circuit completed… RHP Mayckol Guaipe was promoted to the rotation early in the week too, which resulted in bullpen day for the Aquasox… A couple days later the Lumberkings also picked up RHP Seon Gi Kim from the Aquasox and traded them back RHP Ambioris Hidalgo, who had been struggling for much of the year… De Jesus came in. Something else might have happened. I don’t know. Did you know that the Great Lakes Loons have a player named Duke von Schamann? I’m trying to conjure a cross between Dr. Doom and an ascetic in my mind right now and it’s only sort of working.

Strange Happenings:
Ramon Morla walked this week. Yes, that’s worth mentioning. Him making two errors in a game two days in a row is also worth mentioning but not for the reasons I’d like to be doing it… Shipers went seven frames his first time out and had eight hits allowed and a 10/4 G/F. The downside to that was his 3/0 K/BB. On Saturday, he wasn’t as lucky, since he gave up three runs with a 1/2 K/BB in five innings and both the hits he allowed left the yard… Dowd picked off two runners in a game from behind the plate. How about that?

It would seem lazy to devote page space to the idea of Morales “coming around” because we’re only sixteen games into the year and waving my arms in the air talking about how he had four extra-base hits this week after just two in the first nine games seems less than productive analysis-wise. But it is accurate, and his strikeouts have been curtailed a bit, which is only good news. Will this be the beginning of him getting things on track, or will he only get on track for a little while and then slump again (as has been the case so far for his career). Or will he continue high levels of performance but remain strikeout-prone and walk-averse? I feel like we have a lot of those guys.

One of the marks of a decent pitching prospect is that even when they’re bad, they’re still kind of good. Sanchez has four starts and he’s yet to throw fewer than six innings. His outing against Vancouver on the 26th was probably his best as he had a 8/2 K/BB and five hits allowed through six frames. The next outing was considerably worse, with seven hits and a 3/2 K/BB, but then he went and threw six and two-thirds innings anyway. I’d like him to walk fewer than two in one of his starts, one of these days, but for a guy who entered the year with no pro experience, starting in a league where the average hitter is of drinking age and has been for a few months now, you can’t say that he’s doing poorly.

From the Training Room:
Since there was no move from Shore leaving and Guaipe is out, RHPs Matt Vedo and Grady Wood were activated from their limbo… Tanabe also went somewhere. I think the register is telling me Alsup was on the roster briefly too, but it didn’t really matter? He didn’t pitch.

Strange Happenings:
Marcus Littlewood’s dad is now the head coach at BYU… Sunday featured three errors and three double plays.

It was an erratic week for offense. Among wins, you have a 5-0 showing and a 9-1 showing. Among losses, you have 0-9 and 1-14. It’s surprising then that, on average, the M’s were scoring 3.71 runs a game and that’s actually better than their season average, as they have the league’s second-worst offense in the early goings for runs and the worst by far in OPS. To an extent, it’s been because some of those hitting well aren’t playing all the time, but the regulars need to step it up a bit because there are six guys who have seven or more games played and a sub -.525 OPS. Anyway, Henry hit his first pro double and his first home run this week and drove in all the runs he’s on the record for at the moment. I’d worry about the offense as a whole, but it’s early yet.

If we’re being realistic about it, it’s not as though Kaalekahi has ever lacked strikeouts. He rung up 21.7% of his batters faced in his AZL debut, and while that went down to 17.8% in the follow-up year, it wasn’t as though that was bad. Still, when he struck out seven [and walked three] in four frames of work his first start of the season, that was something I didn’t think I’d seen from him before. New things are interesting. I have a hell of a time talking about the same player a few weeks in a row because I run out of new things to mention. Look at the treatment Trevor Miller is getting. This week, Kaalekahi had a couple of starts, one lasting seven innings, one lasting four, and the strikeouts weren’t in a good place, but the walks were improved and he wasn’t giving up hits. Which you should know from reading the line. Learning processes, engage!

From the Training Room:
Minor changes. IF Richard Palase was promoted from Peoria probably more having to do with his college experience than anything else (he wasn’t hitting well).

Strange Happenings:
One of the Twins pitchers on Saturday threw four wild pitches in two and two-thirds innings. You’ll be less surprised to find that he walked three. And the guy that closed the game goes by “Dallas Gallant” and I would expect that name to show up on various minor league name competitions later… Hebert tried to steal bases this week. “Tried” being an operative word, as he was 1-for-4 on attempts… Pizzano ran a 5/6 K/BB this week. He only had eleven at-bats. And two hits… I’m counting ten errors this week, so that might also be a sore spot.

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Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.